I new clue on the Mad Poet's name...
Added 2024-03-21 16:36:52 +0000 UTCWhile researching for the book today I stumbled across Ibn Al-Haitham, an author and scientist born in 965 in Basra, Iraq. His primary work Kitab al-Manazir was translated into Latin in the 12th century, and at that point his name morphed into Alhazen. While it lacks some vital consonants toward the end, it certainly is similar to Abdul Alhazred.
As i have noted before, I use the name Abdel Hazred (Abd el-Hazred) as a compromise to remove the grammatical redundancy of "Abdul Al-", but Arabic names were routinely transformed, twisted, and made unrecognizable as they made their way abroad.
I think it is fun to attempt a little reverse engineering, so perhaps our Mad Poet's name was something akin to Abd El-Haithrad? Or, given that Al-Haith is the name of a sub-district in Yemen, perhaps his name shares a common source with that? Just something fun to consider.
